In her latest stories, Antonya Nelson sets her characters in the middle of the country, at the edge of reason. In the title story, a depressed mother follows her delinquent son from juvenile court to the maternity ward, shocked when teenage fatherhood turns his life around. In “Party of One,” a woman tries to protect her suicidal sister from a painful breakup, while hiding a dark secret of her own.

“Falsetto” also features a protective sister, who learns a lot from her adolescent brother in the wake of a tragic accident. In “People People,” a married woman discovers her own insecurities while trying to shelter her obese, romantically destructive sister. In “Biodegradable,” a traveling businesswoman finds a romantic connection unexpectedly close to home. “Or Else” and “OBO” both feature desperate characters trying to lie their way into tight-knit, nuclear families, with unexpected results. In “Kansas” and “We and They,” bohemian Wichita families cope with unexpected challenges: a kidnapping within the family in the first story, and an unexpected alliance with religious neighbors in the latter. “DWI” and “Shauntrelle” both take place in the aftermath of a romantic affair: In “DWI,” a woman copes with her lover’s suicide, and “Shauntrelle” features an unlikely female alliance in the wake of a failed marriage and love affair.

In Nothing Right, human relationships --- between lovers, spouses, siblings, and parents and children --- are laid bare, revealing the fundamental vulnerabilities we all share.